Bryn Askar
Name: Karla Brynhilde Askar – ‘Bryn’ Age: 18 Hobbies: Bryn enjoys being outdoors generally, and finds cities and urban environments disorientating and overcrowded. She likes to travel, and to hunt in her wolf form. Though she won’t admit to it, she also enjoys catching sticks and a nice sleep in the sun when no-one’s looking. Powers/Abilities: Lycanthropy As a pure werewolf, Bryn is largely in control of when she transforms, the exception being on nights of a full moon, where she must take full wolf form for the duration of her time in the moonlight. Moonlight is not required for transformation, nor is the process painful or drawn out; instead it could be compared to a ‘whole-body’ sneeze. In this full form Bryn appears as a slightly larger than average grey furred wolf and loses the powers of human speech, colour vision, and experiences a strengthening of her animal instincts over her human ones, for example the more developed powers of reason and analysis. The longer she stays in any one form (human or wolf) the more the aspects of the other will fade, so although she has a superior sense of smell even in human form it is minimal compared to when she walks on four legs instead of two. Strength and Senses Bryn has a higher than average strength than either human or wolf, however this is mainly concentrated in her grip whilst in human form. She can take down larger beings than her with a pounce, but packs about the same punch as a strong human male in a straight fight. Her senses are also much heightened when in either state, although this is more true of her wolf state than her human one. She has a natural perception and balance, a truly brilliant sense of smell and higher than average hearing. The downside is that sometimes this can lead to a sensory overload, which is the reason why she tends to avoid cities and crowded places. Regeneration Contrary to modern belief werewolves aren’t technically immortal creatures, the oldest is thought to have lived to over 300, although there are no stories of one dying a ‘natural’ death. They have a great resistance to wounds however, and a high pain threshold. Though they cannot be killed by conventional weapons as such, they still feel pain, and can be kept in a state just before death, which they regard as the ultimate torture. As a young werewolf, Bryn’s stamina is not what is will become, and she is likely to misjudge the amount of punishment she can take before passing out. Over a period of several days however, the wounds will heal completely, normally without leaving a scar. Magical Resistance Werewolves are naturally distrustful of magic that occurs outside the natural world, but as beings partly composed of magic they have an inbuilt resistance towards it. This is not to say they are completely unaffected by it, but are by nature far more attuned to how it works and psysiologically adapted to absorb more of it than a normal creature or human Strengths: Physically strong with the ability to regenerate over time, brilliant sense of smell and hearing, and animal intuition. She doesn’t tire from physical activity easily, and can be quite friendly in her own way. Weaknesses: Bryn isn’t smart, certainly not in any academic sense, which leads her to get angry and abandon a mental challenge whenever she is faced with one. Silver items will burn her skin, and any wound from a silver weapon will leave her scarred permanently if it heals, and is far more likely to prove fatal. In her wolf form she shows an active aversion to fire when her animal instincts get the better of her, and is easily confused. When she transforms, clothes don’t transform with her, thus she often ends up unwittingly naked. Rank: Alias/Purebred Werewolf Character Info: Bryn was born into a community of werewolves who take refuge in the mountainous woodlands of the western Canadian/American border. The community, known to themselves as the Blackrock Pack, originally migrated from Northern Europe during the early 19th century to avoid being killed in new and inventive ways by entrepreneuring monster-hunters armed with industrial weapons. They settled first in the Black Rock area in Northern Pennsylvania, hence their name, but have since moved on as civilization has encroached closer and closer on the wild frontier which they sought safety in. But, times change, as do circumstances, and now the Blackrock Pack realise that if they cannot flee from humanity then they shall just have to live with them. The pack, consisting of about 40-50 pureblood adults and other half-breeds and hangers-on, live in their own little village surrounded by dense forest several miles from the nearest town of any significance. All the humans know is that the area is rife with wolves, but as long as they don’t bother them then they aren’t bothered back. The community is self-policing and self-sufficient for the most part, decisions are still made by the dominant alpha-male and female as in any other animal pack, and any trouble-makers are swiftly dealt with. Bryn, or Karla as her birth certificate actually states, was born the second child of the current alpha-family in human form, but pureblood werewolf through and through. Survival instinct worked for her right from the start, and she quickly realised the key to living in the pack was by showing her strength. Even as a child she would fight with her elder brother Bjorn and the other youngsters in the village, and by the age of ten she had firmly established her place as one of the dominant class; much to the delight of her father. However, Bryn also displayed a fiercely independent streak at times which marked her out from her peers. She showed complete disdain for the history of her kind, or indeed for the lessons of her elders. Although it went against the will of her father she spent a long amount of time around the human town, often just for amusement. As she grew into her teenage years she rejected the advances of the males of the village, even going so far and to publically fight and beat a young ‘man’ who made a pass at her. Her independence was becoming more and more noticeable amongst the close-knit pack, dividing opinion amongst the elders. Even her own father and mother disapproved of her nature, nicknaming her ‘Raesir’; the one who hunts alone. Her time amongst the humans of the mountain town was attracting unneeded attention for the village, but before any decision could be made about what to do with her, Bryn had gone. It later transpired that a young man from the human town had been found dead, apparently mauled by a wild beast, and not too far from the woods Bryn frequented when she took her walks. Since then Bryn has been travelling on her own, abandoning her family and the pack in favour of her own wanderlust. She prefers to range the country rather than hang around the larger human settlements where there are too many smells and too much temptation. When she reached the sea Bryn did at first not know what to do, however, her instincts led her to stow away on a cargo ship, and quite unwittingly she ended up in a strange land so unlike the one she had grown up in. The people spoke a language she didn’t understand, they looked different, smelt different, and the entire land seemed to buzz with human activity as she had never known before. So she spent most of the first few weeks in Japan as a wolf, scavenging the small area of abandoned industrial scrubland by the docks. During the day she would listen intently to the people as they went past, and thanks mostly to the benefit of her superior hearing, picked up enough Japanese to navigate her way out of the docklands towards the mountains. Clothes and food were acquired as needed, and even a bit of money from unsuspecting sources. She’s come as far as the Hinata Dorms, where she has paused, briefly, before heading off on her travels once again. As a person Bryn does not quite fit in with human society. A natural tomboy as it is, her years of growing up fighting in a male-dominated system have made her confrontational and brash. She comes across as rather anti-social and mean, when in fact she only means to be sociable as she knows how. That said she is never averse to resorting to physical means when faced with a challenge she doesn’t understand, which is quite often. Receiving only the basics of education she can manage to write in English and a corrupted form of German, but numeracy doesn’t come easy to wolves, and she is no exception – beyond the most basic addition and subtraction, she tends to give up. Bryn doesn’t know where her wanderlust will take her or how long it will last, and although she does sometimes miss the feel of being in a pack she also knows it is not her pack she is missing. NPC: No